Vodafone and Groove Mobile are turning their collaboration over off-portal music downloads into a commercial trial that may result in a full service launch this fall.

Vodafone U.K. has agreed to test an SMS-triggered music download service powered by Groove that will allow music labels and artists to sell directly to the customers without incurring Vodafone’s normally steep download fees.

Vodafone along with most European providers charge per-bit or per-minute data charges to access or download data on its GPRS and UMTS networks. While for a small application or a ringtone that many not amount to much, a 3 MB song can rack up charges well beyond the cost of the song file itself. In an effort to encourage more music downloads over the network as well as drive more data usage, Vodafone is waiving the data fees in exchange for a percentage of the song sale.

“Cost incurred by music labels to distribute music on a digital platform remains the single biggest barrier to off-portal music sales and one of the largest inhibitors to growth in the off-portal sector in general,” Groove chief marketing officer said in a statement.

Sony BMG will be the first record label to sign to the program, but Sexton said additional labels will follow as the launch gets underway. Eventually such a platform could be used by labels big and small or even individual artists could use the platform to distribute their music without relying on getting on a carrier’s high-demand content portal.

The three-month trial will begin in July, after which Vodafone will do a full launch in the fall, though the scope and scale of that launch will be determined by the trial results. Groove Mobile has been expanding into all aspects of the full-track download space. It powers the Sprint Music store as well as the 3 Groups full-track store. In addition to audio files, it has been expanding into music videos, having just expanded its deal with 3 to power its music video download service.